First Meeting
by freakanature06
Summary: Johan makes his very first friend on a trip to Japan with his father. Mild young Spiritshipping. VERY G-RATED.


_A/N: I'm kind of… taking liberties with Johan's past on this. XD And probably with his characterization. *sob* But I tried, man! A lot of this is based on discussions my fiancee and I have about the series. ENJOY~ 3_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of the characters in the series. **

Eagerly, Johan Andersen pressed his nose against the glass of the window. The car wasn't moving very fast because the streets were busy this time of day, but the blue-haired ten-year-old was still intensely fascinated with the world outside the confines of the car. He had never been away from his home city, so everything was a new experience to him.

It had taken weeks and weeks of begging and pleading with his father to convince the man to let Johan tag along for one of his business trips. Johan had pulled it off, though, and now he was in the city where Duel Monsters was centered. It was like all of his dreams had suddenly come true.

When they reached the hotel, Johan was able to slip away from his dad to go explore the city more. His father had an awful lot to deal with, so he didn't typically pay attention to what Johan was doing. Besides, it shouldn't be an issue to find his way around. One of the conditions for his coming with his dad was that he had to learn how to speak Japanese well enough that his father wouldn't have to worry about him if he were to wander away for a few minutes. And Johan had bent to the task with a passion. Now he could speak very well, if he did say so himself, and he didn't think he'd have a problem talking to the people in Japan.

For hours, he wandered around, stopping by every card shop he saw and staring in awe at the cards, trying desperately to find some of the spirits that attached themselves to the cards. It wasn't that hard to find some of them, but others were much more elusive. Johan chased them down streets and under parked cars, just so he could talk with them for a while.

It was during one of these chases that Johan found himself suddenly running headlong into another boy who seemed to be running after what Johan himself was running after. Their heads collided and they both fell to the ground, letting out yelps of pain. Rubbing his head, Johan opened an eye and peered at the boy he had run into. He looked about Johan's age, with brown, poofy hair partly covered by a backwards baseball cap. He wasn't anything like what Johan would have expected to find in Japan.

"Owwww," he was saying, rubbing his own head as well and pouting. "What were you even _doing_?" Johan bristled silently at the accusation that this was his fault somehow, but he instead looked at the boy apologetically.

"S-sorry," he replied quietly. "I was following… someone." After a while, he had come to realize that he shouldn't talk about his spirit friends in front of other people. People tended to say mean things about him if he mentioned he could see something that no one else seemed able to see.

Seeming to forget his pain, the boy tilted his head in interest at Johan, perking up slightly. "Who were you following?" he asked brightly. "And why's your voice so weird?"

A small frown creased Johan's young face as he pouted lightly at the boy. "My voice isn't weird! I just have an accent 'cause I'm not from here." Already, he was throwing up the defensive shields he had developed lately. He was used to being picked on for being different, so he had begun to lash out at those who did the picking. "And it's none of your business who I was following."

Johan stood up then, brushing himself off and looking around. The spirit he'd been chasing seemed to have gotten away while he was busy talking to the other boy. The other boy, for his part, seemed all the more interested in Johan because of his response.

"Whoa, really? Where are you from then? And how come you can speak Japanese?" He was scrambling to his feet as well, adjusting the cap on his head and looking at Johan in awe, a big grin on his face.

Unused to this particular sort of attention, Johan shifted uncomfortably, bringing his attention back to the other boy. "Um… Denmark?" That was what the boy was asking, right? "A-and… um… I learned Japanese so I could come here."

The boy's eyes widened in excitement. "Whaaat? Really? That's so cool!"

Johan's cheeks flamed red at the compliment, however strange, and he looked away. "It's not _that_ cool," he mumbled awkwardly.

But it was only a few minutes more before the boy was trailing after Johan and talking incessantly to him. He didn't seem to want to leave his 'new friend' (as he called Johan) alone in a city he didn't know. And, honesty, Johan was grateful for the company. He didn't have many friends back home, so it was really nice to have somebody who seemed to really like him, even if he didn't know about the things that made Johan crazy.

"Do you like reading?"

The question was only the next in a series that the two boys had been asking back and forth all day. They had already established that the both of them really liked movies, dogs, and card games and were just trying to find how many more interests they had in common through the barrage of random questions. Johan had been munching on some chips they had bought together when the question occurred to him and he spouted it.

Pulling a face, Johan's new friend shook his head. "Books are boring and they don't have pictures or anything."

Johan pouted. "Some books do…"

"Not any that I've seen!" the other countered hotly. This had been a theme of the day too, random heated arguments over silly things that quickly died down. "But I like comic books!"

While Johan had never really been into comic books himself, he knew enough to know of a few. "Like what kind of comic books?" he asked curiously.

After a moment of thought, the other boy shrugged. "Stuff with heroes! Like Superman and Wonder Woman and The Flash. Oh! And I like Jojo's too!"

Johan stared at him a little blankly. "Um… that sounds really cool." He didn't recognize any of those, except for Superman, and that only because Superman was a really big name all around the world. He felt kind of bad for not knowing his friend's favorite comics, so he decided to make himself feel better by telling what his favorite books were.

"I really like Hans Christian Andersen," he mumbled, crumpling up his bag of chips.

"Who's that?" His friend gave him a baffled look.

Johan actually did feel better knowing that this boy didn't know one of his favorite things either. "He's an author! A really good one."

"Oooooh."

The day continued in much the same vein. Johan's friend showed him around and Johan told him about Denmark in return. It was the most fun Johan had ever had with another person in his whole life, and he loved every minute of it. As it started to get dark, though, he realized that he was going to have to find his way back to the hotel soon and leave his new friend behind.

"It's okay, I'll help you find it," was the response he got when he mentioned this to the boy and Johan was happy to have his company for even a little longer.

"How long are you gonna be in Japan?" the boy asked hopefully when they had found the hotel.

Johan shook his head. "Um, just a few days, I think."

The boy pouted. "Well, you should come see me again! Every day!" And he told Johan his address so that Johan might find him again.

Johan was so elated as he turned to walk inside that he almost forgot to ask something very important that he'd been putting off all day. He stopped and turned back to face his now retreating friend, calling after him. "W-wait!" He ran to catch up with the boy and thrust his hand out to him.

"I'm Johan. What's your name?"

The boy looked at his hand for a long moment, then grinned and took it, just holding on tightly. "Judai!"

The name echoed in Johan's memory. And years later, when he found himself holding the hand of the very same boy at Duel Academy, he couldn't help but be ecstatic. It didn't matter that Judai didn't seem to remember him – who could expect a child to remember someone they'd only known for a few days? All that mattered was that Johan was once again able to meet the very first person who had ever befriended him.


End file.
